Remi de Groot

I wouldn't worry about heating the tank much higher. Got guppy's here between 60 and 68 F without any problems. The risk of a broken heater is bigger then low water temp in a lot of cases i think. Also: how higher the temp of water the less oxygen water normally seems to have. As far as i know there is no way to measure oxygen in the water? So knowing that you have enough oxygen isn't really possible as far as i know. Do you have an airstone in the aquarium? If not, thats the first thing to add...

The problem with things like this is that there are no problems untill there are. A leaking aquarium can be a pain in a lot of ways so i wouldn't take the change and wait to long with it. But it's also not a matter of days before it goes wrong. I've reseald a couple of tanks and i actually found it not to hard and a rewarding chore. So if you have time and want to get some aquarium related experience in a different way you could def do it yourself. Good thing i found is that it's not hard to 'start over' when failed (just time consuming). Maybe give it a try on your quarantaine tank first. When it's done and looks good just do a good water check on a place where a leak is not a problem (outside, shower, garage etc). The King of DYI has a lot of good video's from back in the day (before he became the hyper youtube

Have to follow the two others on this one. As soon as the lights have been off i wouldn't do anything in the tank anymore. Because i worked in restaurant for years i'm a night person as well and most of the time not out of bed before noon. So the timers of my lights are set to my lifestyle and not to the rest of the world. Meaning that they are still on at night so i can do things like maintanance, but even more important enjoying my fish.

I never owned one of them, but got feeding corners. The idea is the same though. The one you bought is probably even easier, because I'm always having a hard time aiming to get the food in the corner instead of just next to it. One of the things that happens a lot of time is overfeeding. Shrimps just don't eat that much food that we provide for them because most of the time they find enough food in the tank itself. By using the feeding dish it's easier to remove the food that's left over after a few hours. Making sure it won't be rotting in the water. Especially in the smaller shrimp tanks this rotting food can have an impact in the water quality pretty fast.

I got several neo and caridina tanks in my living room. All without a heater. Temp going down to 57 degrees at night in winter. No problems at all. Used to have heaters but the energy prices in Europe are insane at the moment in i've seen this video that shows temp isn't an issue

The water will turn clear over time. No need to worry about the fish. After a big rain in nature water is murky as well.

As @Scapexghostis saying. Don't be bothered by just one death shrimps. Shrimps and fish die. Can happen. Only if more start to day within a few days you have a reason to be worried. Water parameters seem fine to me. About the tds: check this video

I'm using similar nets as this one, but the cheaper versions (can be found on AliExpress, Amazon etc). Working fine for me. Got one with an extendable grip wich is awesome, so i can use them in my nano tanks but also the bigger community tanks. Use them when catching shrimps for the culling. If i'm catching more shrimps or all of them (sale or relocating a group etc) i just use my regular fishnet. Might be looking for a square one though in the future, because the round net isn't always the best. My experience is that they sometimes can be a bit jumpy when being catched. So a brine shrimp net may be to shallow.

In that case it makes sense to use RO water with GH/KH+. Putting everything in a new tank wouldn't change the PH problem i guess because of the lack of a KH buffer. Hopefully the Salty Shrimp will arrive soon. That should end the problem.

Only Caridina shrimp i know of that seem to be a bit more hardy are the Crystal Reds/Blacks. They seem to be able to live in water with a bit higher PH and KH. The other way around i haven't seen yet. Here (Netherlands) some strains are kept in tap water (so higher in GH and KH) and are doing ok'ish. Especially if they are born in this conditions. But they won't breed as much, have more deaths and in my opinion don't color up as nice as well. I tried a group like that once a few years ago, but they didn't survive for to long. Not sure if it was the water parameters though or the hot summer and lack of oxygen back then.

Question 1: Most of your problems seem te be coming from doing to much and trying to be to perfect. Not sure wat the affects of potting soil are on PH, because i've never used it myself in a tank. But KH is normally a buffer to prefend big changes in PH and keep it higher as well. I don't know Seachem Equilibrium but from what i can read on the co-op site it will add GH to the water, no KH. May i ask why you don't use tap water? Did you test your water? Question 3: Again, Equilibrium seems to be a GH+. So the same as the Salty Shrimp but without the KH. If your tap water indeed isn't suitable the GH/KH+ is fine without the Equilibrium. Question 4: Don't worry to much about the feeding of the shrimps. Most of the food they collect through the whole tank and are micro organism. The food we add is only extra if they don't find enough or when the tank isn't seasoned enough yet. Some of my shrimp only tanks i only feed once a week and even that seems to be a bit to much. In the tanks with fish and shrimps i only feed the fish itself. Shrimps take the left overs from the fish and are fine. Once in a while i may drop some shrimp food in, but they don't seem to excited about it anyway. You could add some leaves in the tank to get some extra food in for the shrimps that won't be eaten by the fish.

To be honest i still find feeding shrimps one of the hardest things to figure out, even after a few years and 6 tanks with shrimp. Some groups eat a lot, others don't seem to eat anything i put in the tank. Probably they have enough food in the tank already. Best thing is just to start with really small amounts every other day. If they didn't eat it all you can remove the leftovers and feed a bit less the next time. Still not all finished? Do even less feedings in the week. Most of the tanks with small groups (under 30 shrimp) i only feed them once a week. But i always make sure they have enough leaves in the tank and 'snow flakes'. They don't affect the water parameters and that way food is provided 24 hours a day. Chris Lukhaup had a great video about feeding as well last week.

If it was my tank with the shrimps in it for 6 days and no problems yet i would do 10% waterchange everyday untill i got the parameters i want. Off-topic: To be honest. I make spelling mistakes in my own language as well ;).

I would do small water changes (5-10%) with the GH/KH+ daily or maybe twice a day. It could help to do this changes as drip acclimation. Not sure wat is worse for the shrimps though. A faster change (so almost a 100% but with drip acclimation) or the current water parameters. Can't really read in your post how long they already have been in the current water parameters without KH.

On my second Betta now. First one lived for about 1,5 years and was bought for €15 at a LFS. Didn't have any signs of illness but was getting tired way faster in the end and didn't eat as much anymore. Got my current one at Vivarium (aquarium event) last oktober for about the same price.

The amount of co2 leaving or oxygen entering the tank could be different because of the flow change i guess. Thats why it's almost impossible to tell someone how much co2 to add. Because every tank and every set-up is different. The longer the co2 bubbles stay in the water before touching the surface how more co2 will be dissolved in the water. When the bubble hits the surface and pops the left over co2 in the bubble will just go up in the air instead of the water. Also the amount of movement of the surface affects the amount of gas excange (oxygen and co2) between the water and air.

I was in the same position about 3 weeks ago. Pulled about 15 eggs but only one was fertilized in the end and hatched. Love the Fluval container you got. Bought it as a birthday present for myself when pulling the eggs. Because only one Cory hatched it's pretty easy to keep the breeding box clean. Every morning I turn of the air for a sec and clean the bottom with an airline. After I put in new food (just crushed flakes and some baby shrimp powder I already had) and reconnect the air again. So far so good.

150 years ago it was also BS that People could fly. What's the deal with so many fish people hating about changes in the hobby. Compared to other hobbys we didn't have that much big changes. I'm a big fan of mountainbiking. The bike I was using 10 years ago is almost completely different from the one I use now. Everything is updated (most of it for the best). But when it comes to aquariums change is a bad thing? I'm happy someone decided to try somewithhing w led lights on top of an aquarium years ago. With the current prices I wouldn't be able to afford all the tanks I have atm. Thank God for change.

Managed to get the fish in alive?

For a shrimp tank you could also try a feeding corner or feeding dish if you don't have it in the tank yet. Doesn't help for the poop, but at least keeps your food on 1 spot in the tank so it is easy to remove. Image of feeding corner

My 'succes' with Endler Guppies a few months ago actually got me excited about breeding more fish. Didn't set up anything special, but decided to try to safe some cory eggs from being eaten. Only had 1 egg that was actually fertilized and hatched, but super excited about it. Fish is 2 weeks old now and still going strong.

Here in the Netherlands i find that a lot of shirmp keepers seem to be using the Aquael pat mini filters in combination with a double sponge filter or a matten filter. Gives a bit more flow then a regular sponge and i use them because they don't make the bubble sounds an airstone does. My gf hates that noise. So i wouldn't be able to keep my tanks in my livingroom without the Aquael Pat Mini. Not sure if it is available in the US.

If i'm moving my shrimps within my regular tanks with normal substrate and tap water i normally don't drip acclimate them. Never had any problems with that tbh. When i move the shrimps in tanks with RO water i always drip them, because those levels are never exactly the same in the tanks. But if you got time and space it can never hurt to acclimate them. Better safe then sorry. Don't have experience with amano though. Only neocaridina and caridina.

Here in Europe i can get a small RO system for €35, which is a little under €40 us dollar. Maybe it's a bit more expensive, but if i see the prices here to buy the water it isn't a big difference. Only takes a few water changes to earn back te RO system.

The one here in Europe does (called Hornbach, not Home Depot). It's actually a pretty big departement for especially dry goods. The company has a 'lowest price guarantee', so I've bought a lot of my hardware there. The fish and plants itself are basic most of the time. But they just started looking for 'specialists' for all the stores. So maybe that may change 😉.